Well I guess we Canadians and Australians are out of luck on some of the cleaning tricks - our banknotes are now made of plastic, and we don't have and cents. Maybe we can substitute beaver pelt or platypus hide.
I think I remember seeing something like this that was offered by one of the old ignition companies. I think it was Mallory. They had a fancy name for it, but I think it operated manually; sort of a "High-Speed" switch.
I also have my trailing set of points wired to a switch so I can cut them out for a high gear retard.
Just for odd info, back in the early 1960s,there was a guy in Miami on 27ave an US1 that ran elec. repair place,sorry name is now missing from my 76 y brain,but he had invented some points,that one side of points was a little wheel,that moved,he clamed it rotated an that made them last much longer. He was trying to get a PAT. on them,an was making sets by hand. I put one of them in my Olds Rocket V8 powered Henry J,/actully worked OK,but he asked for them back after a few weeks. Seemed like a good idea,but the timing was just as HEI an other stuff was coming in,so nothing happened as far as I know. Too little too late thing may be.
My navy/ Marine electronics instructor showed us his idea for a light fired ignition using a wheel on the balancer for correct timing no points needed way back in 1969.
I believe Garnett paper is the type to use, it is recommended for motor commutators although they have stones now.
Yes years ago we were snowmobiling a guy had a ole snow jet ..it just wouldn't keep running good...you could just barely see the points..my girlfriend had a finger nail file on her...you could just barely stick that nail file in to where the points were...he went back and forth with that file about 10 times...it ran like a brand new snowmobile for years...
Tubman, We set most distributors using a dwell meter and not a point file. On many of the old (unavailable ) units i just bead blast the contact and polish with a 300 plastic polishing wheel. As long as the contact is clean and the proper condensor and coil are used it really isnt a problem. We are assuming the contacts are well made with dual contact/spring and good rubbing block...
Thanks for chiming in Jim. I always set points by dwell and not a feeler gauge (at least when I'm in my shop). You seem to be agreeing with me about re-using the points. As I said before, I am only concerned with older Mallory points that are either no longer available or expensive. I have looked at several old sets and the appear to be well made and look to have .040" of contact material. I'd like a little more information on the 300 plastic polishing wheel, if I may. I bought a points burnishing tool about a month ago, and it doesn't seem to be able to cut nothin'. The whole purpose of this thread was to try and find out if there are tools and procedures out there that will eliminate some of the tedium of filing and reshaping the points.
Sometimes out on the road we would use a thin dime to set points, back in the day.... if we didn’t have a dime........ we would use two buffalo nickels. Just saying.. Bones
I will dig out the info on the 300 grit plastic grinder wheels , my friend down the street owns a Magneto shop and thats what he uses . Not cheap but lasts forever....
This is a picture of the extra fine diamond file that I use. The size of the board is approximately 3/4 by 1 1/2 inches. I purchased it from a hardware supply, and separated the plastic handle leaving the thin metal rectangle with the diamond matrix. I don't even have to remove the points. I just place the file between the contacts, hold them square with light pressure of a screwdriver, and file until the oxidation is removed. Then I flip the file over, and do the other contact. There is virtually no parent material removed during the process. On the left side, you can see the oxidation that I removed from the points. It works like a charm. Bob
Back when dimes were real money, they would get pretty dang thin! Today nobody would know what you mean by that.
This makes me think of something completely unrelated. Has anyone ever noticed that you never get worn out coins back in change anymore? It seems to me that back when I was kid, half the coins you got were very worn. "Buffalo nickels" hardly ever had a date on them that you could read, and the "Standing Liberty" quarters were even worse! I dunno, it just strikes me as strange.
Silver was softer, and the Buffalo nickels had the dates in a very wear prone area. And maybe kids were more likely to have dirt and sand in their pockets to wear away the coins as they spent a lot more of their time outdoors than modern kids.
Well that's what I meant. Silver is softer than modern cupro-nickel coinage, but in those days the purchasing power was much greater. Coins today are just a nuisance, they won't buy hardly anything. Coins - pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters and halves - were the workhouse in commerce and business, and they got used. A LOT. To the point they were wore down so far the banks would have to remove them from circulation. I figure the government should make $5 $10 and $20 coins today, but that will probably never happen. They had some asshat on the TV a while back bitching about "large bills", like the $100, claiming they ought to be outlawed. WTF? That sumbitch must never have been in a grocery store in the last 40 years or so, it will vaporised so fast.
Coins are less expensive to use in the long run than paper money, but the larger denominations are a colossal pain in the butt to carry around. (I dump all my loose change on my wife. ) The big change with coins in Canada happened in 1968, when the government replaced the silver coins, because they were being melted down by people, because the silver had more value than the denomination of the coin. Now we have coins have far less value than represented by the denomination of the coin. Bob
Well that's how it works. No problem until the spot price of the metal rises to a certain point. Then big problem. No individuals probably ever melted them down, silver is actually pretty rough stuff to mess around with. Doesn't melt till 1,763° F and it likes to "spit". What they did do is scrap them at coin and bullion dealers, who paid them way more than face. Today's coinage looks like Chucky Cheese tokens.
The older US silver coins like the Mercury dime had beautiful, classical designs. Compare that to what's being stamped out now. Many years ago I read a book with stories about the Model T when it was current. One of the stories was about a farmer who was reasonably well off. He saved up money in a jar: silver coins and $5, $10 and $20 gold pieces until he had enough to go down to the Ford dealer and buy one of them newfangled machines. So very different times.
I used matchbook striker to clean points and carried a spare set in glove box of a ford. Had to file points on my garden tractor last fall, realized it had been over 30 years since I touched a set of points.
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